Spam
       What used to be mildly annoying is far out of hand now. It makes me want to scream sometimes, but I along with my fellow nerds accepted it. It was presented by some as symbol of free trade, and to be against it was to be un-American. After all, you could just kill it with a keystroke, so it couldn’t be that big of a pain in the ass. How wrong we were. Of course, I am talking about spam.

       Spam (unsolicited E-mail sent to a large number of addresses) has exploded in the last few years, and has risen considerably since the summer of 2001. For those who own their own domain as well, look out! I remember getting 5 to 10 junk email messages a day. Now that I own pquinn.com, I get at least 75, and that’s with setting some dead letter addresses on my email server!

       Spam made a bit of sense to me before emailing An old friend and requesting his advice and added thoughts on the first draft of this rant. I am very glad I did. My original view of why spam flourishes seems to be the same as the average person's view of why spam flourishes. The view is that someone must be buying the shit from spam, otherwise the market just wouldn't exist. Too simple. We must delve a bit deeper, or ask the advice of someone who is smarter then ourselves.

       He writes:

New people will continue to assume that spam works simply because they always got so much spam.

       He later clarifies:

IF SPAM WORKED:

If a typical spam session, spamming millions upon millions of addresses, sold just 10 people....

Let's consider the spam you get offering to sell you a spam email list. Obviously, you're on this list -- that's how you got this spam! Suppose this spam session was successful, and they sold 10 copies of the spam list due to it. That means there are 10 other people planning to spam you, right? And if their spams are successful, they'll do it repeatedly, using the same spam list they already bought, right? Some will be more persistent, some will be less... but let's say on average they each use the list just five times. That means that, if spam works, for each spam selling an email list, you'll get 50 other spams from people using that list.

Except you don't. If you did, only about 2% of the spams you received would be selling email lists. I don't know about you, but my percentage is at least 10 times that. So either people aren't buying these mailing lists (which means the initial spam didn't work), or people who buy the lists aren't using them repeatedly (because spam doesn't work.)

There are some finer details to this that might be discussed, but I imagine you get the basic picture: spam doesn't work.

       I have to admit, I never saw it from that angle, and it makes a lot of sense. Once again, I have played Vizzini to his Wesley… but at least I can admit it. I don't like it, but can admit it.

       Whatever the cause of spam, things have gotten to the point where fewer and fewer people are bothering to read or send email because they don’t want to be bothered with the spam, not to mention the porn spam. Oh my, the porn spam! I have to make sure my brother’s girls are nowhere in sight before I dare open Microsoft Outlook! Not only might they see the pornographic images that pop up without warning, but they may also be a bit disappointed some day when they see the real thing and realize they're not all so huge!

       Okay, okay, I kid… a bit. I am certainly no prude. Looking at porn does not offend me, but I am an adult. I am also a guy. I am also single. As a matter of fact, I love porn! However, there is a time and a place for everything. I don’t want to have to pull the shades, lock the door, and warm up the hand lotion just to read my fucking email. If I want porn, I know where to get porn. And remember, I’m a nerd. I know where to get the good stuff for free.

       So, where do we go from here? How do we get marketers to knock it off? Well my original solution was to find all the people who bought the George Foreman Grill from spam and beat them in the head with the grill they bought until they promised never to buy from spam again. Of course, that is with the assumption that successful spamming is the main reason spam flourishes in the first place, which it does not, as shown by my friend’s simple theory. So, if people never again bought stuff from spam, it’d be just a drop in the ocean in overall spam reduction. And while beating idiots over the head with cookware might be fun, I’d be in southern California for a real long time. (This, of course, does no apply to my friend, who happens to live in southern California.)

       I thought there was only one real solution. If it came to be, it would put an end to the majority of spam. All they have to do is start charging for sending email. Just think, if you are expected to pay a nickel for every email over, say, 50 a week, the spam would stop faster then Sonny Bono on skis. Alas, there is no practical way to implement such a charge, not to mention the impossible task of enforcing it unilaterally.

       My friend again says:

It's all well and good to say "charge for email", but who is supposed to make that charge? The ISP? The spammers can be their own ISP. The government? Which government? Do you think no nation will be a spam haven? If you want the U.S. government to do it, it would be just as effective to simply outlaw spam, and wouldn't cost legitimate emailers anything (says the man who sends out hundreds of opt-in emails each week.)

       There have been rumors about plans that the US government, a conglomeration of powerful companies, or a big green monster from the planet Neptune would attempt to regulate and begin charging for email use regardless of the difficulties in doing so, but it has always been a hoax.

       If The United States Government tried to regulate email, it would be like a monkey trying to fuck a football! Not only would it be horribly wrong, it’d never produce. The entire undertaking would be a failure before it even started. There’d be more problems then there are now, and there’d be too many hands in the pockets of the consumer. ISP’s would swear that there are high email costs, and your rates would go up. Of course, we all know that’s bullshit, but it’s like the web marketer that charges the fee of $17.50 shipping & handling for a small computer chip that weighs less then an ounce. HE knows that you know he is screwing ya, but your only recourse is to bite the pillow.

       I don't know how to reduce spam, or even if there’s a way to do so. Things aren’t likely to change when the Internet upgrades to the Internet 2 either, because when money is involved, there are always assholes trying to take some of it for themselves. From the lowlife marketer trying to find one of the not so few stupid motherfuckers with a valid credit card, to the dill wad that thinks he will strike it big with ads for his super secret “Get Rich Quick” website, we will get their spam. I wish I had some sort of plan to stop the spam, but I am certainly no Stephen Hawking, thank you very much. Anyway, I’d pay a few extra dollars a month for an effective spam block. It would be worth it not to be reminded that I do not have a huge cock every single day of my life.

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